Helping people with complex disabilities get active

We've teamed up with national charity Sense to help them expand their sports provision

We’ve awarded national charity Sense more than £1.3million to help thousands of people with complex disabilities to access sport for the first time.

The National Lottery money will allow the charity to expand its sports provision and work with local partners to run accessible sessions at locations across the country.

The sessions will support more than two and half thousand people with high-level support needs, aged from five to over 50 to access sport and physical activity over the next three years.

Our, strategic lead disability, Adam Blaze, said the money would go a long way in helping more people to live active lives.

“We are delighted to announce today’s investment into Sense,” he said. “It continues their excellent work supporting people with complex disabilities to enjoy the benefits that increased physical activity brings, such as improvements to mental wellbeing and social connectedness.

“We know from our Active Lives research that inactivity levels are unacceptably high for people with multiple impairments.

“This investment will upskill the workforce and influence the sports and physical activity sector to be more inclusive for people with multiple and complex disabilities.”

Our Active Lives survey revealed that disabled people are more than twice as likely to be inactive than non-disabled people.

This figure increases sharply as the number of impairments an individual has increases – with 51% of people with multiple complex disabilities inactive.

To find out more about Sense, and its programme to increase the range of sport and physical activities available to people with complex disabilities, click here